


Careworn Victory

by Ember_Keelty



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-27
Updated: 2011-02-27
Packaged: 2017-10-15 23:32:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/166024
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ember_Keelty/pseuds/Ember_Keelty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>"Uh, Jade?" says the Heir.  "I'm confused.  Did an NPC just beat the game?"</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Careworn Victory

          There is a scream and an explosion of green light, and it's over.  PM folds her wings and drops to the checkered ground.  She's burnt and bleeding, but the pain of the wounds is adrenaline-numbed, and she's had worse from accidents in the wasteland.  Once again, there is blood on her sword — the Regisword, the sword he gave her, the sword she pulled from the ragged scabbard at her waist at the end of it all, when the one from her chest went flying out of her hands and he dove in for the kill, all caution abandoned, thinking her unarmed.  This time she is fairly sure she's okay with it.

            "Uh, Jade?" says the Heir.  "I'm confused.  Did an NPC just beat the game?"

            He and the Witch — the Prince and the Princess — are there staring at her, the boy more in bemusement than in awe, and the girl…

            The girl PM cannot scrutinize closely enough to read her alien face, because the moment she looks at her, the tension in her battle-primed muscles melts away and her brain goes a not altogether unpleasant kind of fuzzy.  She feels a sudden and almost overwhelming urge to throw herself down at the Witch-Princess's feet and roll onto her back with her limbs sticking up in the air and her tongue lolling out.  Somehow that does not strike her as an appropriately dignified way for royalty to greet each other, so instead she goes down on one knee and presses the point of her sword against the ground.  "Your Highnesses," she says, and can't think of anything to follow it up with.

            The Witch says nothing; she just runs up and tackles PM, pinning her arm to her side and almost knocking her over.  PM starts to struggle before remembering she can teleport, but before she has a chance to do _that,_ the Witch buries her face in the fur on her neck and whispers a muffled, "I missed you."

            Oh.  That's what this is.  PM relaxes — but not entirely, because she still doesn't have much of an idea of what to do here.  It's been so long since anyone touched her; her fellow Exiles are all as shy of it as she is.  She presses her chin down against the top of the human girl's head, the only way she can think of to return the hug without freeing her arm.  It feels familiar — wrongly familiar, like the faint lingering smell of sea spray and jungle soil in the Witch's hair that sets her chest fluttering and makes her think, _Home_.  She knows very well that her home was a city, that its broken and scorched remains are even now orbiting over them.  That's what should be making her feel nostalgic, but it still seems to her as impossibly far away and long ago as it did in the wasteland.

            "I missed you too," she says, and somehow it feels like the truth, which is strange because she's certain she hasn't so much as thought of the Witch of Space in years.

            The human girl's arms tighten uncomfortably around her, but only for a moment.  "Thank you.  You don't have to say that.  I know you're not him.  But thank you."

            "For what?" she asks.  It comes out sounding a good deal more terse than she wanted it to and entirely unlike a question.  The Witch doesn't respond, just nuzzles in closer.

            The adrenaline starts to fade, and as it does PM realizes that she's sore all over and more tired than she's ever been in her life.

            "Was it enough?" she asks the girl, much more softly this time.  "Am I good?"  She shouldn't be saying things like that, but the dog wants to know as badly as she does, and she doesn't have the energy or inclination to fight it.

            "Yes," says the Witch.  "It was.  You are.  Good dog!  Best mail lady!"

            PM catches herself trying to wag a tail she doesn't have, just for a second.


End file.
